Trip to Burundi, or, Life in a War Zone

…was pretty nice. So Wednesday and Thursday I went to Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, for a coffee conference. The day we were supposed to leave, some violence broke out and 21 people were killed in Buj as it is sometimes called. After some rumors the flight wasn’t leaving that were eventually disproved, we changed our hotel from one in the city and ended up staying along the shore of lake Tanganyika in the hotel where the conference was being held so we wouldn’t have to venture out if necessary. The hotel was great – lodge-y feel, pool, sauna, massage, the best pineapple juice, etc. So while we never left and I didn’t see any of Buj proper, it was a nice time and it was easy to be oblivious to the problems. I am not too knowledgeable on the politics of Burundi, but the country’s situation is very similar to Rwanda’s in many ways – a mix of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, a former Belgian colony, a small landlocked country dependent on tourism and tea. They have only recently had a stable peace, also having an ethnic conflict from 1994-96, and years of lowlevel fighting after. The group responsible for this week’s killing is fighting fellow Hutus, so there was a bit of infighting.

Anyway, Burundi doesn’t have too much in the way of tourist sites (Lonely Planet highlights include the disputed source of the Nile, and the disputed location where Stanley and Livingstone met up…), but has a stunningly beautiful landscape. Its in the rift valley between mountain ranges, so you are flying in over a green, flat valley with the enormous mountains of Congo on your right and the mountains of Burundi on your left, with Buj situated right on Lake Tanganyika – one of the longest and deepest lakes in the world. Its also at a lower elevation so felt hotter and muggier than Kigali – I often forget we’re right at the Equator.

I’ve had a lot of complaints about the recent lack of pictures – its terrible, but I forgot my camera. You’ll have to wait until Hannah arrives…